"The widely anticipated two-day meeting between chief executives of Samsung and Apple yielded no agreement between the parties mired in a hot legal dispute over copyright infringements." Why end fruitless litigation and spend that money on improving products or, I don't know, charity, when you could throw money at lawyers instead, to the benefit of absolutely no one? These lawsuits are Jobs' blemish on the company, but Apple can't back out now for fear of losing face, even though Cook has indicated he really wants to. Petty.

If I felt that someone had stolen or copied something I had come up with and patented, I might have the desire to go thermonuclear on who I thought had stolen the goods from me. Or I might want to just sue them and get money out of them for everything they make and sell using that stolen intellectual property. Jobs went for the first option, evidently, which is no less proper than the second option, it's just the one he chose, within the current system, which is what he had to work with.

Everyone can argue that software and hardware patents are stupid, dumb, unenforceable, illegal, whatever, but the fact remains that the system remains in place around the world, and until that changes, companies will use this existing system to the betterment of their companies as they see it.